Syndies bounce back against second World Cup soccer session

Review based on a national syndicated rating report for the week ending June 23.

The session ending June 23 was again marked by heavy preemptions and strong competition from the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Nevertheless a number of the top shows in syndication saw their ratings bloom in the last week of spring.

Full season household ratings leader Judge Judy (6.1 live plus same day national Nielsen, up 13% from the week before) had the largest increase among all top tier strips even though daytime and early fringe – which make up most of the popular court show’s time periods – were hit the hardest by the soccer tournament.

Talkers were led for the 146^th straight week by five days of Dr. Phil reruns (2.4, up 4%).

Live with Kelly and Ryan (2.1, up 5%) was the only show in the genre close to “Phil,” snaring second place for the 17^th straight week over Ellen DeGeneres (1.7, down 6%).

Wannabe talker RuPaul (0.4/1 weighted metered market average, down 33% from both lead-ins and year-ago time periods) completed the third of a three-week tryout in the frame ending June 28.

Returned to the nationally cleared programs for the session ending June 23, TMZ (1.1, up 22%) and Extra (1.0, up 11%) were the only double digit gainers among the magazines. But “TMZ” was tied by Access (1.1, steady). Also worthy of note Daily Mail TV (0.9) surged 25% in the advertiser coveted W25-54 demographic. 

Elsewhere in prime-time access slots Jeopardy! (5.7, down 2%), without James Holzhauer for a second week, again lost the game show race to Family Feud (6.3, up 3%).

Meanwhile Dateline (1.3, up 8%) maintained its strangle-hold on the top spot in the true crime category for a 41^st consecutive week and shot up 20% among W25-54.